Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) is the World Bank's flagship household survey program focused on strengthening household survey systems in client countries and on improving the quality of microdata to better inform development policies.
About LSMS (read more here):
"The program supports countries in producing high-quality, multi-topic household survey data that measure welfare and other key socioeconomic indicators. Widely recognized as being at the forefront of survey methodology, the LSMS conducts cutting-edge research on best practices in survey methods, which includes the integration of the latest technology in survey operations."
"The LSMS program has contributed to hundreds of surveys around the world and its publicly available open-access data have been used extensively in socio-economic research and other analytical products to inform investment decisions and policymaking."
The LSMS Data Catalog contains 151 studies (as of August 2022) that can be filtered by year, country/economy, and license.
Several programs have also been created that branch off of the original LSMS, including LSMS-ISA, LSMS+, and 50x2030. The website also lists many LSMS publications, which include guidebooks, working papers, and books.
For any questions or concerns, please contact us at fscadmin@stevens.edu.